Gimmick's Vice: Siege of Steel
by kerricarri
Summary: A cataclysmic event has split the country in half and left it in disarray. In this time of anarchy, Roy Harper struggles with stifling team obligations and the desire to see his wife again. What he doesn't expect is Lian. Or his insanity.


**/this was the former chapter 15 of Gimmick's Vice, but was ultimately deleted for screwing the fic's momentum even further**

Originally intended as a oneshot, I'm restoring it to its proper place...as its own fic. I'm so sick of my major TT fic, but I do remember loving the idea of this being a oneshot.

Speedy's and Cheshire's story, as well as Steel City during the Catalyst. Have no idea what I'm talking about? To bring you up to speed...

_Completely during the 20 years towards Episode 14: How Long is Forever Anyway?, Gizmo grew up into the terrorist Mikron who had some sort of reign of terror in the country before he got offed. Time passed and 'Mikron' became an urban legend, but now suddenly a new Mikron shows up, throwing everyone for a loop. The entire main fic is about Jinx + other villain protagonists (and the gimped, limping, shadow of thy previous self, the Teen Titans) trying to stop this newest baddie on the block from killing everybody with biological and dangerous weapons made from Gizmo's tech.  
_

_This entire oneshot takes place in the past during the three years of the real Mikron's reign, during which he literally split the country in half like Batman: The Catalyst/Batman: No Man's Land's meaner, bigger, pissier cousin with a prison record._

_Poor Steel City is the first to go, along with SpeedyCheshire while we're at it._

_Speedy's fate in G'Verse? Speedy's crazy, takes heroin, guards Aqualad's Corescent-esque Kingdom of Steel in the dark, dark future of Episode 14: How Long is Forever Anyway?, and is generally stark mad from grief. Why? Well, Cheshire was murderered sometime between this chapter and G'V and his kid Lian was raped, beaten, and killed before his eyes._

Wow. Are you still here? This is the only damn thing I'm proud of still in regards to the latest chapters of Gimmick's Vice. I never should have submitted this under Gimmick's Vice. It's one of the rare and few SpeedyCheshire fics out there...such an underappreciated couple...if you're new, though, you'll probably be hopelessly confused.

* * *

"Don't go." He grips her arms, eyes searching hers desperately. "I can't lose you. I won't survive."

In a languid and almost gentle move, she pulls away from him and he lets her.

Her mouth curls. She leans an arm forward. A cheek is cupped, and when he tilts his head down, their foreheads meet. Her hand slides down to his chest. It stays.

He shuts his eyes, and then breathes. His expression wavers between tremulous resignation and bitter regret until he sighs, looking tired. He averts his gaze.

She smiles. "See?" she says, turning his face towards hers again. "Have a little faith in me. I won't die. I'll not fail, so that I may see you again."

"How long will we be separated this time? A month, a year? How long will you make me suffer?"

"You don't mean that," she says.

"My team—"

A single finger that is held to his lips silences him.

His hands grasps hers and holds onto them tightly. "I want to marry you."

"You want to wed me under the system that wants to kill men like your metahuman friends?"

"I want to marry you to ensure that you won't leave me ever again." He chokes a laugh, releasing her. "As if the law can promise me anything like that."

"Yes...you vigilantes don't put much stock in laws."

"I don't give a damn anymore," he says. "I'm sick of being a Titan. I want to be wherever you are, see whatever you see."

"It's a mite difficult, your request. I'm an assassin."

"I don't care—"

"I'm an _assassin_, and if you get caught with me on this next job, your life is forfeit. Your friends are unusually...passionate. They fight for a government that your enemies have sworn to bring down. Tell me," she says, leaning in, "is having me worth the world having to turn on you?"

He lets his head fall on her shoulder. "You already know the answer to that," he says, and his voice is muffled.

Her laugh is hollow. "I do, don't I? You're a right fool, Roy Harper, but you're my fool at the least." She looks up and smiles. "You were very foolish when we properly met for the first time. I hope you realize that."

"...We had a torrid love affair when I was supposed to bring you in. Stupid, I know."

"I don't regret it."

"Neither do I." He turns into the nape of her neck, frowning. "Why did you accept this job? I don't want you crossing that border..."

Touched, she pulls away. Instead of addressing his words, she fingers a bruise on his face. "What happened?"

"Crime fighting, that's what."

"Is it worth it?"

Roy closes his eyes. "Under Garth, yes. For him I'd do anything. But for you..."

"I know." A pause and she leans into him again. "That border is not something to be taken lightly. I will not take your warnings in vain, Roy, but I'm just as human as anyone else when it comes to metahumans. Those hypocritical men controlling this country are employing the very same type of people they are seeking to destroy."

His arms tighten around her. "Those bastards. They can't get away with these things! But no one dares to confront _the government_ when it's apparently the only thing standing in between them and crazies like...like Mikron."

"Mikron is dead," his lover says in a whisper, "but his legacy remains. That explosive specialist I told you about before...there are rumors that she's dead, but I don't believe them. They say that she went insane from Mikron's death and ripped the country in half by herself."

"I don't want you going towards that border."

"There's a threat of radioactive poisoning there, I know. That place is rife with cancer. Who'd have thought that Mikron was able to accumulate so much Xenothium? Or maybe it was all stolen from Steel. And then that women used it all at once to destroy the world..."

"You're scaring me," he says, "but I know you're scared, too. We were...all horrified. First, Steel was captured, and then we felt earthquakes for miles."

"I want to leave this country," she says. "I have hopes to return overseas. It was misfortune that found me here when the Catalyst began, but not even I can escape this perpetual lock-down."

"It's been three years since it's ended. It's still a mess back at the city. I can't leave the Titans."

"I can't leave this life."

"I can't leave you."

"There's a chance I will die. Killing is so common in this anarchy, but the Americans I encounter are flourishing amongst this chaos. It is despicable."

He suddenly kisses her. "Come back alive, Cheshire, or don't come back at all."

"Don't say it, Roy. Don't come after me. It's not—"

"I'd go through hell to get you back. I already have! I'll never leave you. Ever."

Her eyes narrow. "Are you searching for death?"

"No." His smile is unexpectedly bitter. "But I'm not some woman you can expect to wait at home for you forever. One of these days, you're going to draw my hand and force me to abandon my teammates. Don't do this to me, Jade."

"When I fell for a vigilante, I knew what I was doing."

"Really? Because I didn't."

Her voice falls quiet. "You are my life, my every happiness. But there are some things that you must never know of my world. I won't let you."

"Why? Why do you get to decide what I should know or shouldn't know? Don't look down on me. You don't know the things I've handled before."

"Roy..."

"I'm sick of this balancing act," he says, breaking out of their embrace. He steps away, and frustration lines his face. "I feel like I'm going to constantly wobble on that tight-rope until the day I die. This isn't a circus I'm living through, so why does it feel like it? Why won't this pressure disappear?"

"I'm not pressuring you to do anything."

He explodes. "But you are! Do you know how hard it is to juggle between you and the others? You never tell me where you're going or what you're planning to do. You always leave when I least expect it, and then waltz right back in as if nothing happened. Sometimes, I only have you for a day, but for that one day I may be in the middle of saving the world. Do you know how many crises we've been through that's started with the premise of _saving _the world?"

She says nothing, only looks at him with smoldering eyes.

"But there is no world to save," he says, gasping. "The Teen Titans are _over_, but they've left their slack to us Steel folk to deal with. I can't take this anymore. The people out there in the streets don't know who to trust, and they don't want our help. Why do we have to keep going? Who said we have to keep _trying_? They don't give a damn about us, but we're supposed to save them again and again and again...? When does it end, Jade? _When does it end?_"

"It never ends, Roy." Her gaze flickers to the ground, and her arms wrap around herself. "...This is why I said I knew what I was getting into. Vigilantes, your minds are surprisingly simple. Most start off with a black-and-white mentality. Ignorant. But I've...tainted you as well. If we had never met, if we'd never fought in that forest before the Brotherhood of Evil disbanded—how would you act, I wonder. How would I?"

"What are saying?"

"I was levelheaded before I met you," she says. Her eyes are wide with disbelief. "Cold and unmoving. Nothing could touch me, I thought! My heart was detached from the world. I'm turning into the one kind of person I never wanted to become, and it's all because of you."

"Jade...?"

She stumbles away from his confused touch. "Enough! Why did it have to be you? Why? I knew what I was getting into. I knew what would happen! So why was it you...? I don't understand..." she says, stricken, "_why did this have to happen_?"

"What...what happened? Jade—Jade, look at me!" Roy seizes her arms. "What did I do to you? What's happened?"

When she doesn't respond, he shakes her. "Jade!"

"_She died_, Roy!" Cheshire says. "That precious little girl..."

There is no time for consolation or softness. He brings her tightly to his chest and her form is stiff with grief. "Who was she?"

"Not a target," she says. "Bystander. Passerby. Civilian—_innocent_. I killed her. I killed a little girl."

Roy doesn't understand; his lover has never expressed such panic over a death before. The change frightens him. "How did she die?"

Her words come almost feverish. "The man had a child. How was I to know? He had a little girl who loved him...wholeheartedly, fully, and with no reservations. She threw herself at her papa's feet. He was corrupt, mad. Consumed with power. How did I miss? Cheshire never misses. Self-control—there was no control to be had that night. Why...why _her_..."

"Then it's not your fault," Roy says, eyes fierce. "None of it was!"

"But how was he loved_?_" There is a puzzled quality to her voice, and her face is lost. "He was _loved_, Roy. Such an awful man, but he had such a lovely child..."

Why this fixation with children? Is it really because of an accidental death that his lover is panicking? An uncalculated fatality—no, it is because it is an uncalculated fatality that it tears her up inside. Her plans had been skewed that night, and as her assassination skills had never failed her before, she'd never expected her shot to...

And this child, the one in the midst of all this turmoil in Jade. What was she to her? Roy can't understand why she spoke about her dead target in the way she had. Loved? How did love factor into any of this?

"Jade," he says, and his body trembles. "Jade, what's wrong with you? Why does this job stand above the rest? What are you so afraid of?"

"Why did this happen? All your fault, it's all your fault...if it wasn't for you, I'd be—!"

"Jade."

Her eyes clenches shut. "I love you," she says, voice breaking. "I love you! I love you, I love...damn you, why did it have to be a vigilante? Why was it you? _I hate_..."

Her legs finally give out, but he sinks to the ground with her. Together on their knees, he embraces her, and she lets him. She is crying into his chest, and her frame is racked with sobs.

Roy breathes.

"You don't hate me," he murmurs into her hair. "Ever since you came into my life, only good things have happened to me."

She barks a laugh, and the sound is a near hysterical one. "Me? I'm the charm you'd so happily pocket?"

"Of course," he says, smiling faintly. "You belong to me."

She quiets, but her tone is no less bitter. "You were just as chauvinistic then. You thought to serenade me into prison."

"I failed, didn't I?"

"That isn't it, Roy," she says. Weary from her tears, she is content to simply lean into his arms. "I'm not like you. I'm not flexible. I can't change. But you're different. You can adapt and grow stronger for it."

He strokes her hair. "And?"

"You're so strong. You're fighting so hard to just...juggle."

His movements still. "I'm sorry that I've hurt you, but I won't apologize for saying that."

"I know. Headstrong, stubborn—_tactless_—I don't want these things to change about you. You fight for what you believe in. A common trait among heroes, no? But I've none of that initiative to seize that passion for myself."

"Are you so sure about that?"

"I cannot change." She pulls back to look at him with despair. "Why do you want to know so much of my world? Why would a superhero want to become involved?"

His expression suggests that he finds the situation to be a disquieting one. "Before you, Jade, I am Roy Harper first and a superhero last. With you, I can take off all masks and be done with that damned life—if only for a night! I want to know everything about you. I won't turn away from the horrors you see. I want to experience what you experience, to share whatever you share." His lips quirk. "I want to be wherever you are, see whatever you see."

"Do you know what you're asking of me?" she says.

"Yeah. I do." His face is open and vulnerable. "I've always been honest with you. I've never pulled any my punches. But I get the feeling, sometimes, that you don't trust me anyway."

"Roy..."

"I understand why, logically, it's like this. It doesn't make it hurt any less, though, you know? It hurts. A lot." He bring her hand to his beating chest. "Right here, it hurts like hell. Every day that I think of you, every hour that I see you...it _hurts_. I can't lose you, but I can't tie you down, either—I'm not _worth _tying you down. You're a villain, right? And villains don't adhere to the demands and scheduling of their superhero boyfriends..."

His smile is more of a grimace. "It's okay. I may not have known what I was getting into when I got involved with you, but I don't regret it. I've never had regretted it. Even though I've had to stumble my way through the dark in regards to you..." his smile turns genuine, "I'd deal with your troublesome ass any day."

"I trust you," she says, "more than you'll ever know."

"Sometimes, it doesn't seem like it." But his tone is gentle.

"If I come back," Cheshire falters, "_when I come back_, I want to tell you something. Wait for me until then...please?"

There is a moment of silence before Roy lets out a rough sigh. He sits back on his haunches and runs a hand through his hair. His brows furrow, and he is clearly troubled.

"One last time, Roy. That is all I ask."

"Okay. Okay, fine." His hand is clenched in his hair. He doesn't look at her. "But this is the last time. I won't be able to take it, Jade. Not again."

She buries her face into the nape of his throat, letting her arms curl around his neck. "I won't let you suffer because of this. I will come back. This will be my last job. I'll give it all up if only you'll take me back."

"Then I'll be waiting."

--

"I couldn't tell him after all."

A hand snakes to her belly, and she lets it rest there. Her eyes are mired with pain.

"Roy..."

--

"_Christ on the cedar. __Attis on the pine.__"_

She curses, running after the man.

"_Odin on the world-ash."_

Her weapon gleams in her hands as she whirls around in the near total darkness. "Show yourself," she says, slinking forward a hand to coat her blades. Poison drips to the ground. "Come, I tire of this cat-and-mouse game..."

"_It's only been five days_," a voice says against her ear.

She spins, but only slashes air. Frustration lines her brow, but otherwise her face gives nothing away; her employer has said nothing about the metahuman nature of her assignment. Her grip tightens.

It's been nearly a month since she left Roy. It'd taken far too much energy to pass the continental border and far too much time. There is an inane exhaustion that plagues her steps now. Her movements are becoming slow because of it.

Time is against her. There is a pressure to finish her job quickly. A pressure to see Roy. Sometimes, the stress overwhelms her and she is overcome with her longing.

She wants to go home. She wants to tell Roy.

_Their baby is coming._

-- FOUR YEARS AGO

_The city is under siege. Or perhaps it is not. Maybe everyone, like him, is waiting for the day that the war will finally end. Because it is madness to think that this will last forever._

_What version of a lie is the truth? No one knows. He doesn't._

_Is this the place where people were happy, treated each other well, and lived under the safety of cherished vigilantes? Or is the real Steel City the one where people kill each other, where they live in terror of going into the streets because death is almost certain? Where a mad terrorist threatens their livelihood with experiments of disease, blood, and metal..._

_He believes he has gone insane. It is the only explanation he knows. He cannot rationalize what is happening here. Desperately, he wants to understand, wants to know why neighbor turns against neighbor, why an omniscient god watches them, judges them, kills them. _

_How does that monster choose his victims? How does he decide who lives and who dies? But this terrible god does not deign to kill by his own hand; he leaves the slaughter to his children. _

_He is the one to arm the snipers, the one to teach them to hate. He is the one to hire mercenaries, to bring upon them hoard of metahuman freaks. He is the one who gives them the weapons—the disease, the blood, the metal—but most of all, he's the one to give them the bombs and mortars and shrapnels. They are full of just more than acid, smoke, and sulfur. This god delights in dehumanization; he's given them biology. His children are armed with this epidemic diseases, twisted laboratory experiments. The city is nothing more than a rat cage to the god._

_So then how do those snipers, mercenaries, metahumans decide who lives and who dies each day? He wonders what they look for in a victim—or if they choose at random? He doesn't know whether to be grateful that he is not dead yet or insulted that he's not worthy of their notice._

_He suddenly realizes that there is only horror in understanding._

_He believes he has gone insane. Perhaps one day this would all make sense to him. He fiercely hopes that this day will never come because it will then mean that there is sanity to be had. It would mean that the men caging them in their own city are reasonable, logical people. It would mean that they're right._

_It would mean that they've won._

_This is, above all, something he does not want to acknowledge. He wants to keep fighting. He wants to keep fighting for the city he remembers. But with every passing day, it becomes harder and harder to distinguish what is past and what is his present. Is the city he remembers truly a bright and shining place with a future that stretched across the world? Or is this city the real one after all? One of burning, screaming deaths and slow, eventual death..._

_He no longer can tell what version of a lie is the truth. He doesn't know. Nobody knows._

_This isn't logical. Reason is not supposed to walk hand in hand with murder. American citizens are not supposed to be executed the moment they walk out onto their streets. They are not supposed to be picked off, one by one, as their extermination is stretched out and prolonged._

_It is madness._

_--_

In the beginning of the war, everyone looked away from the early warning signs because they didn't want to see the awful truth. The economy was becoming bad. Major corporations were left bankrupt. Inflation was hell. It was an enormously inconvenient but not yet awful truth; the people survived.

And then the rumors start. Wild, speculative rumors of a metahuman terrorist that is fighting for change. For justice. For the release of the supervillains left in the hands of the government, doomed for extermination. The rumors are too many, propagating like bacteria as this Mikron commits one horrific crime after another.

When his operation is no longer secret and must come out into the open, Mikron does so without complaint. His debut into the world begins with him proclaiming the western coast his. He succeeds.

The world watches as America systematically breaks down. It is crippled without its western half. The country has gone to the dogs. It is in the midst of a national crisis, and it will not admit it.

The capitol is chaotic. Its floor are run over with vicious opportunists and corrupt politicians. Higher ups wreak havoc as they do more harm than good in promising the people absolution and protection.

And yet the people eat it all up, scrambling and desperate to hide their eyes from unpleasant truths. But reality is not awful or unpleasant. It is horrifying.

Humans are selfish creatures. They shield from pain, seek oblivion in denial. They want to be as comfortable as they can, and their deepest fear is the possibility of being completely driven into a corner. Self-preservation instincts. The ultimate decider of who survives and who does not.

But this bestial tool is buried deep within the consciousness. It does not awaken when the person is in denial. Just like when major reforms and laws are frenetically passed after a terrible disaster, crisis, or tragic accident, so it is the same with people.

When something so horrific happens that a population is jarred from its security, its people wakes up. Awareness is formed. Suddenly, the surroundings are in too bright clarity.

The light hurts their eyes.

First, they will either block the sunlight with warding arms or rub their eyes of this new, unexpected irritant. Because of this, they cannot immediately look at where they are.

When their visions finally settle and they no longer feel threatened, the populace realizes that the light no longer hurts them. If it does not hurt, surely it must be good? They look up.

The sunlight horrifies them.

At the opposite side of the country lays the largest industrial producer of the west coast, a city that has grown enormous with the last decade. The vanguard in the Xenothium field, it is a dominant force in national politics. Perhaps even the world.

But it is more than just a precious factory in America's backyard. The city is vital in being the country's pillar of support, a role it has grown into magnificently.

Too well, some might say. And they're right. It is the country's most dire weakness, its crutch. When times fall hard, the people turn against the city and regard it with spite. When times are good, they look at it as their adored Eden, the jewel they make as their precious eye.

They are about to learn just what it means to survive.

For the western coast of the United States of America, the world will end at approximately 0700 hundred hours on an innocuous weekday that starts like any other. For most, mornings mean bad traffic and even worse coffee. Mondays always the worst, many workers head towards the city with little optimism; they don't look forward to hours of highway congestion.

They are forced to commute to their jobs from faraway, but new cars, powered by special Xenothium cells, quell their grumbles somewhat. Xenothium is becoming increasingly popular, yet exclusive, because gas is no longer a commodity everyone is willing to suffer.

A Xenothium-powered car is, however, a hell of an investment to pay and a mighty culture shock for gas-guzzlers. In their disgruntlement, some drivers think that they might prefer to clog up the planet more if it meant they could get their old cars back. They are, of course, complaining only because they are out of their comfort zones.

The rest of them are the ones who can't afford such pricey technology and must sit in their vehicles full of pumped dollars, all the while gritting their teeth at their neighbors' cars and seeing green.

These are the unlucky ones who cannot find residency within high metal walls, but desperately need the steady income. And Steel is rich in opportunity, growing more and more larger with each day. Locals joke that it is a living, breathing thing. They are not wrong.

The citizens of that substantial region of the country is going on with their daily lives as usual, like all days gone wrong.

This is not your ordinary day.

For Roy Harper, who has not yet met Cheshire since a decade before, this day turns out to be hell on earth. He is the defender, the vigilante, and he cannot even protect his own city, the people. He will find out what it means to fail, that he hasn't truly faced desperation until the moment the world explodes. He will learn that even superheroes are powerless in the face of anarchy.

Steel is helpless against this new and unseen threat. Mikron's liquid influence has easily seeped into the cracks and pores present in the city's guard. Its high metal walls are nothing to him, and he makes this triumphant fact known. Within days, Mikron cuts off the state-sized metropolis from the rest of society.

For the ten days of the siege, the world echoes his name.

The city turns dark in the shade of a gigantic force field. It encloses the sky around them, encasing them into a bubble. Like a snow globe, but impenetrable to child's play. And Mikron considers the police force to be child's play.

It is irony that paints the force field a translucent orange. When the sun strikes Steel, its metallic walls cannot be seen from behind thick gelatin, almost organic, caging walls. Instead, it is as if the city is struck with hellfire.

Roy thinks it apt. Just as he knows, with terrible uncertainty, that he will never see this city's air space free ever again. Not when his memory will scream of this day.

It is as if an iron curtain has descended upon a corner of the United States, an iron curtain in the form of a containment field that leeches energy off of the city itself. Xenothium or electricity, it doesn't matter; Mikron's net sucks power indiscriminately, constantly, and soon enough nothing works to illuminate the city but natural sunlight. Nothing works in the city at all.

They have been captured, and yet the net still thrives off of them. Mikron does nothing beyond letting his parasite live off an already defeated city. The quiet makes everyone nervous. They try to rationalize that the terrorist's sudden inactivity is because of the government, of the states, the nation. Any and every explanation is clung for sanity's sake because no one can believe that they are truly cut off from the rest of the world, that they've been abandoned and left to die.

They cannot accept this. They cannot, they are in denial. Ten days of siege stretch into twenty days of nothingness, and the imprisoned start going mad from their unease. They are becoming insane from this inactivity, from the not knowing, from this _goddamn silence_!

Deliriums become commonplace as people hang onto their hope, juggling that with their crazed denial. They are hysterical, inconsolable, while others have taken to standing at the city's boundaries and pound at them until their hands and fingers bleed.

Sometimes, they go even further, using their heads and bodies to ram against translucent walls. Their broken bones and mangled bodies is the price, splotched pools of blood serving as morbid tribute. The force field wall is as hard as it looks.

Some are convinced that they can see the outside. They claim that help is coming, and then they throw themselves into the dirt with tears in their eyes. They claim they can see the sun for real and not this diffused sunlight which mocks them, that they can see the sea to the west and the mountains to the east, that they can see the sky and it is _blue_.

Roy is acutely aware that no one is coming to help, that no one can help. He is utterly convinced that they are alone, and this forces him to his knees faster than any knife to his side. He is aware that he is dry heaving, retching, and it takes a moment for him to realize that he is crying.

The days stretch on.

And then a miracle happens. The cage around them starts to bloom, slowly, opening from its very bud tip and into a dazzling flower. Roy has not felt proper sunlight in days. He wants to consume more, drink more, take it all in as much as he can until he wants to drown, and so he climbs and climbs until he reaches that pinnacle point where he can indulge in this sensation.

He sees that other people have the same idea as him, the same call to reach high ground. It is then that a revelation hits him. For that one suspended moment of irrevocable joy, Roy feels a kinship with these civilians, these men and women who've known exactly the horrors he's known for the last thirty-seven days.

It is a rare feeling of absolution that fills him. He realizes that he can finally claim these people as his own for the first time, truly feeling the need to protect them because they are family and their mutual suffering is finally over. For the first time, Titans East will be appreciated and adored because until Mikron they've had no clue what superheroes have risked for them, what Roy has _sacrificed _for them.

He's suddenly so grateful for this siege, so thankful that they've triumphed over it, that he is overcome with emotions. He drops to his knees, but this time in a choked, deliriously happy manner. He is crying, more like sobbing, but there are no tears in his eyes because he wants to see the sun, feel the light warm his skin, know exactly when that cage is opened and they are free.

He tips his head back.

Because of his sharp eyesight, he is able to spot what most miss at first. He is puzzled, but soon his puzzlement transmutes to disbelieving horror.

There are mortars being dropped down from the sky.

He cannot move. The Titan is seized with an inexplicable urge to scream. The previously happy smile on his face freezes. He feels afraid, and he has never felt afraid. He thought he knew what fear was before, but he knows now that all of his previous experiences are tricks, scams—_nothing_ compared to what he feels now.

He knows when the cage is open. It is opened at the exact same moment something in him breaks.

* * *

I wish I'd showed a jaded Roy Harper starting to rebel from the overly strict, stifling obligations of being a Titan. We get a little of the jaded, but none of the Titans East. Still, I love how Speedy and Cheshire affect each other's morals and mentalities. If anybody knows anything about my pairing preferences, I love superhero/villain dynamics. I found a SpeedyCheshire community, but it really is quite small.

Ultimately, this fic makes no sense if you're a newcomer to the G'Verse. Feel free to think of this as shameless advertising, but I hope it's not too damn confusing on its own. If only I wrote this solely with SpeedyCheshire in mind...I'm so disappointed with Gimmick's Vice, I'll probably shut it down and focus on ending this fic with a second chapter.

Reviews are greatly appreciated.


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